Originally published October 31, 2014
By Lisa Y. Garibay
UTEP News Service
Elisa Wilson, D.M.A., wasn’t sure what she had gotten herself and her UTEP Chorale singers into when she said, “Yes.”
The project was a significant one, serving to mark the 30th anniversary of El Paso’s Holocaust Museum. It was a piece that any serious vocalist would want to tackle at least once in their career: Verdi’s Requiem, the legendary Catholic funeral mass as dramatic as an opera. Few classical music pieces are more complex or powerful.
But this time, the Requiem was going to be even more challenging. And Wilson was both excited for her students to take it on while also apprehensive about the intensity they would face.
“I’ve explained to them that they’re a concentration camp chorus, but I don’t think they’ve really gotten that yet,” Wilson said.
She’s speaking of “Verdi’s Requiem: Resistance and Redemption at Terezín – A Holocaust Story,” which will be staged at the Plaza Theatre on Saturday, Nov. 8. UTEP Chorale is partnering with El Paso Symphony Orchestra and the El Paso Holocaust Museum for this moving interpretation, which will include a dramatization and recreation of the process that composer, conductor and pianist Rafael Schächter went through in staging Requiem for Nazi officers at Czechoslovakia’s Terezín Concentration Camp during the Holocaust.
Tickets for the performance are available at epso.org and all proceeds go toward the museum’s maintenance and mission of advocating peace and tolerance. It’s an important cause on many levels.
“There were millions of victims, but there were also many survivors and many stories of hope, redemption and resistance,” said Lori Shepherd, the museum’s executive director. “For our anniversary, we wanted to tell an uplifting and impactful story, and music became the focus for that.”
Back in 1943, Requiem adopted new meaning for the 150 imprisoned chorus and orchestra members who learned the entirety of the dense piece from a single score of music Schächter had smuggled into the camp. The chorale had to be rebuilt twice as members were continually deported to Auschwitz.
Terezín was originally designated as a model community for middle-class Jews from Germany, Czechoslovakia and Austria. In a propaganda effort designed to fool the Western allies, the Nazis publicized the camp for its rich cultural life. In reality, it was a place of desperation, torture, starvation and death. Through Schächter’s passionate pursuit of the Requiem, he and his artists found a way to sustain themselves.
Before his death, Schächter said, “We will sing to the Nazis what we cannot say.” His staging of the Requiem was performed 16 times between 1943 and 1944. Months after their final performance, Schächter and the majority of his chorus, along with thousands of other Jews, were deported to Auschwitz and the vast majority were murdered.
Those who survived credited Schächter and the music they performed with giving them the strength to live, offering them hope that there could still be beauty and joy even in the darkness of the Holocaust.
Based on the book Terezín Requiem by survivor Josef Bora, the dramatized performance being presented by UTEP’s Chorale and El Paso Symphony Orchestra was first conducted in the Czech Republic by Radek Krizanovsky. Until now, it has only been performed in Europe, making the El Paso staging the official U.S. premiere.
The number of performers is so large and the action so broad that the Plaza Theatre is removing seats from the front of the house in order to accommodate the musicians and vocalists. This will be the biggest production in which most of the UTEP students ever have participated.
Music education major Rebecca Terrazas, a junior who is singing alto in the chorus, had never heard the Terezín story, but is grateful for being able to tell it in such a grand way.
“It feels very humbling,” she said. “The fact that these people were suffering for their music and their art is so sad but also so inspiring.”
El Paso Symphony Orchestra Music Director and Guest Conductor Bohuslav Rattay first introduced the idea of reenacting the Terezín Requiem. A friend of Rattay’s back home in Prague had performed the piece and told the conductor about it.
“This is more a reenactment of what actually happened,” Rattay explained. “There’s going to be acting, there’s going to be talking between the singers about what went on, there’s going to be a scene where a Nazi officer is looking for a singer who hides himself in the choir – it’ll basically show the life of what these people had to go through.”
Rattay will be handling the duties of artistic director of the production while Justin Lucero will be in charge of staging alongside the UTEP Chorale. Full rehearsals with the entire creative team will start early next week.
The noted Czech composer has never tackled anything like this before but is excited to bring something this unique to both the audience and the artists. He has visited Terezín himself and hopes to infuse the power of the place into this production.
“It’s very emotional … You cannot believe stuff like that was happening only 70 years ago,” he said.
Jean Berlowitz, one of the local vocalists performing alongside the UTEP Chorale, has a very personal investment in this production and its history.
“What has been a surprise for me is taking the time to find out where my own relatives who died in the Holocaust perished, and to learn that at least two of my relatives, my grandfather’s oldest brother and one of his daughters, died in Terezín,” Berlowitz said.
Wilson notes there are many lessons from the Holocaust that can be applied to today’s world.
“Our team is so brilliant and thoughtful, I’m hopeful that we can really make this relevant for the students so that they can walk away from this not only having a professional, real-world experience – which is always the primary goal – but also with a sense of history and the relevance of it to current events,” she said.
Rattay is happy to offer such an opportunity to the students.
“I was a student once, too, so I could appreciate getting out of the student mindset to go into the professional world and getting to perform with a great group of artists,” he said. “So anytime we have something we can collaborate on, I’ll always try to make it happen,” he said.